


Circular Reasoning

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5655793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things have always been done a certain way in Night Vale. Change takes courage, and few ordinary people have that. Maureen doesn't, but then again, it takes a certain amount of special to be ordinary in her little town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circular Reasoning

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a weird theory about Maureen and how she keeps surviving, why she took a while to really give up on being an intern, and why Cecil refused to give her the college credits. Does he really just not get it? I wonder. This was born from all of that.

On Maureen’s fifth birthday, the runes outside of City Hall shifted. They squirmed, really, as if so profoundly disturbed by their own message that they had to defy the stillness of their engraving. Someone from City Hall with a heavy voice called Maureen’s mother. She told her daughter’s father. They looked at Maureen, each smiling the same watery smiles. 

Maureen knew these smiles well despite her probably-few years. They were not a smile you’d see often outside of Night Vale, not that she had a basis to compare for that. They communicated a message as clearly as the man on the radio. No, more so, usually; the smiles failed completely to be cryptic. They said: we are terrified, but there is no getting over or around this news, and so, we accept our fate. She did not know that it was a matter of hers, instead.

This was the first emotional trial. The first death, in a way; it marked the number-one occasion where they looked at their daughter and understood she would be more than that. Maybe one day, she could not be there daughter anymore. It was stressful for them. Maureen, though she understood the smiles, did not know this, either. Not yet. 

What their voices said, as always, was too light and easy for their mouths.

Her mother said, “Cake will have to wait, dear.”

Her father said, “We have to go to City Hall. There’s something we need to show you.”

Maureen pouted. She’d been there once before, on a field trip. They’d gone in the dead of night, while the building was covered in black velvet, because it was far too dangerous to bring children within a hundred feet of the City Council. It was boring, filled with civic history and absent of cartoons, sweets, or anything else a kid might want on her birthday. 

Still, they took her hands so tightly in theirs that she could not hold them back, and dragged her as much as guided her out the door. 

When they came back, Maureen had not eaten all day, and her stomach twisted too much for cake. Her intestines, weaving themselves into complex patterns like the runes, would not hold food inside of them. She only had room for acid and bile, and the certainty of disappointment. She would never be a ballerina princess warrior astronaut, or even a doctor. Still, her parents hugged her, this time holding her whole body tightly, and reminded her that they would always love her. 

None of them are told that Cecil Palmer received a phone call, too, but her parents knew.

\------------

On her thirteenth birthday, a collection of adults decided she was old enough to babysit, if she wanted. She didn’t especially, but the intoxicating promise of responsibility and buying herself a double-scoop of ice cream - instead of begging her parents and still getting just one, if she were lucky - was too much. 

So a week later, her mom dropped her off in front of Ms. Palmer’s place in the afternoon. She and Mr. Carlsberg were already at work, but Janice had the day off from school. Of course, no matter what some people might say, not even Steve Carlsberg alone would be irresponsible enough to leave an elementary-school kid by herself for a day. Instead, Cecil Palmer, the Voice of Night Vale, answered the door for Maureen. 

She looked up at him. He looked down at her. There was not much distance. Maureen wished for more. He broke the silence, fittingly. He said, “Thank you for coming.”

She nodded. His voice, without the filter of technology, sounded incomplete. She gripped her upper arm, and nodded uncomfortably. He waited, this time; he allowed the silence to grow. He waited for her voice, and she decided then that he was cruel. She just wanted to go inside. She could tell it wasn’t happening.

“Uh. No problem.”

The ease with which he appraised her made her stomach dance again, like the runes on her birthday. He nodded, and she turned an urge to kick his shin into a scuffing motion. She shoved the toe of her sneakers against the sidewalk repeatedly. 

He said, “I’d stay longer, but I’ve got to get down to the station. Hey, you know… In a few years, maybe you should apply for an internship with us.” He smiled, looked her over again, nodded. “You can get college credit, and that will make your life easier, trust me.”

She opened her mouth to snap about choices and lying and lying about choices, but she thought about the owner of the house behind him and not lying, and the isolation that honesty brought. He went on, “Think about it, okay?”

She nodded, and finally, he walked past her. As she stepped through, she heard the sound of her mother’s car pulling away, now that she knew her daughter was safe. Of course, it was an act, faker than the rest. Faker than Cecil’s, probably. 

Everyone in town knew that Maureen was always safe.

\-------------------

On her twenty-second birthday, Maureen applied for jobs She had plans with her friends for the evening, but the pressure she’d been getting from her parents and literally every other adult in her life was ridiculous. 

She and her friends were, thankfully, all dealing with the same thing. Their parents would ask, in unison, at the exact same time of day three times a day and using the same phrasing, “Sooo, how are those post-grad plans coming along?” She and her friends would complain about it later over armadillos.

Before then, she had to get the door to her room. Someone was knocking. It was her mother. In her mother’s hands were a clump of papers. They stuck to each other, coated in something black and matte. Her mother gave her that Night Valean smile again. Maureen lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, mom?”

“These are for you, sweetie. I… went by and picked them up today. It seemed like something you might be interested in.”

Maureen’s next breath filled her lungs with something other than air. She felt sticky on the inside, but she reached out to take the papers, because she had realized that her mother’s hands were shaking. It had never been her mother’s fault. She had never asked for a child with _Destiny_ , only maybe one who got decent grades, and curly hair would have been nice. Maureen had failed on two counts; at least she hadn't need to worry much about her acceptance to NVCC.

She looked at the paperwork. “Night Vale Community Radio Intern Application,” it said in bold at the top. Underneath, there was a coded message, but the black stuff smudged it out of existence partway through. Maureen had never once expressed an interest in radio. She preferred dance, mathematics, and old architecture. 

She nodded to her mom, and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem, sweetie.” Her mother’s hand was already on the doorknob. Her fingers still trembled, but she added, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Maureen replied.

Her mother left. Maureen stood still and silent, and for the first time, allowed herself to shudder over this whole mess. She threw the papers onto her desk. The black stuff kept them stuck together in perfect order, and she grumbled and actually stuck her tongue out at them. Still, that was all the venting she deigned worth it. She hooked the desk chair back with a foot, catching it as it almost fell over, and took a seat. 

Her whole life had built up to this. If she wanted to fight fate, she should have done it sooner. She should have gone down to the station, instead of holding a hand in front of her eyes whenever she passed it. She should have asked Mr. Palmer, who seemed so happy with his job, if maybe he’d keep it a little longer. 

She had never done this, and so, here she was, clicking her pen open and setting it to the paper without hesitation. Bravely, even. In spite of everything, she’d heard the fates of many interns over the years; it was hard to believe she’d come out any luckier. 

The application was almost too simple. She was done in five minutes. It helped that the last question pretty much answered itself.

_“Why do you want to be an intern at NVCR? What appeals to you about a career in radio?”_

_“You know.”_


End file.
